Parents are often anxious about their children s eye health and are equally confused about how to take care of this vital organ. This concern is totally understandable, given the fact that kids these days are exposed to a myriad of visual stimuli that has become an integral part of their life computers, mobiles, tablets the list is endless. So, it is imperative that you give substantial importance to your child s eye health as you would do with his/her general well-being. However, most times parents fail to pay attention to their child s eye health until it is too late. Here are 10 ways to keep your baby's eye healthy.
Our eye muscles move our eyes. Eye movements are the quickest, fastest and the most frequently made movement by the human body. In fact, just to read these two sentences, you would have made about 15 eye movements. Too much use of technology, reading and writing can make your child s eyes fatigued and weak. Here are few tips for parents to save children from related problems.
Practice the 20/20/20 approach: When the eye muscles are fatigued due to overuse and less rest, children usually complain about headaches, blurry vision, double-vision, problem in focussing, etc. To counter this, the most common approach one can follow is the 20/20/20 mechanism. This means after 20 minutes of computer work or near reading ask your child to focus at an object placed 20 feet away for 20 seconds. Remember to relax and blink frequently while taking these breaks. This will help the eye muscles to regain some vitality and fight fatigue due to constant pressure and strain. Here is something you should know computer vs. laptop - which is a lesser evil.
Encourage outdoor activities: Recent studies have shown that children spending more time outdoors have a slower progression (not reduction) of myopia or nearsightedness, which is usually common among school going children. However, playing in the open and a dose of natural Vitamin D can help to fight the condition effectively. A study done in Beijing on 370 primary school students has shown that more of outdoor activities and sports and less of reading and writing as compared to secondary students make the former lot less prone to myopia and reduce the incidence of wearing reading glasses. Here are nine reasons why every child should participate in sports.
Offer a balanced diet: How foods can help to improve eye-health is not known completely. However, malnutrition can affect vision in a bad way, just like it would affect the overall health of your child. Some studies have also indicated that lutein and zeaxanthin, carotenoid pigments are essential components for eye health. These are the same components that impart yellow or orange colour to various common foods such as cantaloupe, pasta, corn, carrots, orange/yellow peppers, fish, salmon and eggs. They constitute the main pigments found in the yellow spot of the human retina. They have also been linked with reduced risk of age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and cataracts. Here are eight natural remedies for better eyesight.
Practice good focusing techniques: Always encourage your child to follow good focusing habits, which mean to avoid near reading and activities that could lead to too much eye strain. One good way to do it is to make your child sit at a study table to do his/her homework and reading. Encourage to keep the spine erect while sitting, which will limit near reading habit. In a similar manner, keep your child at a distance from the computer screen while using it. Get ergonomic furniture to enable your child to position the computer screen 20 to 24 inches away from the eyes. The centre of the screen should be about 10 to 15 degrees below the eyes for comfortable positioning of head and neck. Make sure that the brightness, text size and colour contrasts are adjusted to the optimum so that it doesn't strain your little one s eyes.
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References:
1: Lin Z, Vasudevan B, Jhanji V, Mao GY, Gao TY, Wang FH, Rong SS, Ciuffreda KJ, Liang YB.Near work, outdoor activity, and their association with refractive error. Optom Vis Sci. 2014 Apr;91(4):376-82. doi: 10.1097/OPX.0000000000000219.PubMed PMID: 24637483.
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1: Abdel-Aal el-SM, Akhtar H, Zaheer K, Ali R. Dietary sources of lutein and zeaxanthin carotenoids and their role in eye health. Nutrients. 2013 Apr 9;5(4):1169-85. doi: 10.3390/nu5041169. Review. PubMed PMID: 23571649; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3705341.
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